Your Right to Know

Two central Ohio agencies that make the homes of the poor weather-tight and energy-efficient are
among those the Ohio inspector general has accused of mishandling federal stimulus money.

The report the inspector general released this week specifically questions payments to two
agencies that did work in Franklin County: Ground Level Solutions conducted about $20,000 in
questionable work, the report says; and the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, $6,600.

Inspectors found that the Ohio Department of Development might have sent money to weatherization
groups throughout the state for work that was done at addresses that did not exist and at homes
owned by people who made too much money to be eligible for help. In some cases, including $9,900
worth of work through Ground Level Solutions, inspectors said it appears that the state paid twice
for the same work.

John Johnson Jr., the executive director of Ground Level Solutions, said inspectors incorrectly
used state records of completed projects to deduce whether there were double payments. A separate
set of financial reports records payments, he said, and his agency’s financial audits have been
clean.

“They were drawing a conclusion that there was a duplicate payment, which is an incorrect
conclusion,” he said.

His agency was also flagged for potentially spending $9,700 on ineligible projects. Johnson said
that could be because Ground Level Solutions was allowed to rely on a recipient’s eligibility for
home-heating assistance to determine eligibility. In the case of one high-value home, he said, the
heating-assistance program later determined that it had been given incorrect eligibility
information.

The biggest problem came from weak federal guidelines on determining income, said Deputy
Inspector General Carl Enslen. That reflects poorly on the program at the federal — not the state
or local — level, he said.

“They didn’t even have to ask for any documentary evidence, such as a W2 or an income-tax form
or anything,” Enslen said.

In MORPC’s case, most of the flagged spending was for seven project files in which documents
supporting the cost were missing.

“When you’re called out on compliance errors and you’re using state and federal funds, that’s
serious,” said MORPC spokeswoman Laura Koprowski. “We’re making it a priority to look at the report
and respond.”

Overall, the inspector general’s office is questioning more than $223,000 in federal stimulus
money that the state paid to groups to weatherize homes. It looked at a sampling of about 1,000
projects out of about 33,000 completed in the state, Enslen said.

The report questions expenditures at 10 of the 14 weatherization agencies it surveyed.
Fifty-eight nonprofit groups took part in the $267 million program in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

The highest number of questionable expenditures was in Dayton, the inspector general found,
noting $108,000 spent by the Community Action Program of Dayton. Second-highest was in Cleveland,
where the Cuyahoga Community Department of Development might have spent $37,000 on the homes of
ineligible recipients.

Development officials during the administration of Gov. Ted Strickland bragged that Ohio led
nation in the number of stimulus-funded weatherization projects completed. But federal inspectors
warned that the state wasn’t doing a thorough job of vetting the work of agencies that received
money, leaving the program open to waste, fraud and abuse.

The inspector general’s office found earlier that the Ohio Department of Development not only
didn’t do enough to monitor the program but also let agencies choose which homes state inspectors
would visit.

The Dispatch found in 2010 that work at 40 percent of homes in the program did not pass
state inspections and that some agencies failed all their inspections. Both MORPC and Ground Level
Solutions had no major problems in state inspections in 2008, 2009 and 2010, the newspaper
found.